Goodman Real Estate, Inc. reinvigorates former Downtowner Hotel site with a $12.5 million purchase, millions of dollars in restoration and dedication to affordable housing

At the corner of Fourth Avenue South and South Main Street in Seattle’s International District, just across the street from Seattle’s famed King Street Station entrance, a 100-year-old building needed saving.

The former Downtowner Hotel, once a grand example of Neoclassical Revival style had turned into an obsolete eye-sore with mold and smoke damage. Only 90 of the 240 units were occupied.

Instead of letting another Seattle historic building go, Goodman Real Estate, Inc. stepped in to protect the project and more importantly, protected the property for low-income residents.

Retaining Affordable Housing in the City

With the purchase of the renamed Addison on Fourth, Goodman invested millions of dollars in fully restoring the project and ensuring access for low-income residents (those earning 60 percent of the area median income) to a quality living environment close to transit and downtown Seattle.

Goodman is one of few for-profit, private sector developers in Seattle also choosing to invest millions to operate and maintain low-income and workforce housing.

Addison on Fourth consists of 252 units with artist lofts and musician studios on the ground floor. The building received a seismic retrofit, as well as a new hybrid solar-thermal system that will help reduce heating costs for tenants.

The building’s lobby was reconfigured for better ADA accessibility and residential amenity spaces were added to the ground floor and basement.

Instead of displacing the residents occupying the building at the time of the purchase, Goodman Real Estate, Inc. worked with the residents to move them to fully renovated units in the building and offered full relocation assistance to qualifying tenants who did not want to stay.

A Part of the Community

Goodman Real Estate, Inc. was founded in 1980 and with each project, helps maintain the character of the individual Seattle neighborhoods and remain an integral part of the community.

The company was founded by John Goodman and has more than $2.5 billion in assets. Goodman Real Estate, Inc. specializes in multifamily construction, hotels and resorts, office and retail buildings, land development and structured investments across the United States and Canada.

Goodman Real Estate, Inc. relied on Clark Design Group as the architect for Addison on Fourth and Venture General Contracting as its contractor.

Addison on Fourth received Historic Preservation Tax Credits through the National Park Service and Special Tax Valuation through King County and low income housing tax credits sponsored by the Washington Housing Finance Commission. Stratford Capital Group provided the tax credit equity.

100-Year History

Built in 1911, Addison on Fourth was originally called “The New Richmond Hotel” and catered to visitors and newcomers to Seattle. During World War II, the hotel was taken over by the U.S. Army, which used it as a hospital for wounded soldiers from the Alaska Aleutian campaigns. The building was returned to a hotel following the war and sold to the Continental Hotel System and improvements made.

By the 1960s, the hotel had become a police problem and hotel owners promised to clean it up and after renovations, the building reopened in 1966 as the Downtown Hotel Apartments. In 1970, the hotel was converted to low-income apartments and again renamed the Downtowner Apartments. Goodman purchased the property in 2012 and after extensive renovations, it is still used for low-income housing.

The New Richmond Hotel has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a significant historic building and is one of the best surviving projects of the short partnership between two noted Seattle architects, Augustus Warren Gould and Edouard Champney.

Foster Pepper is proud to support Goodman Real Estate, Inc. in all of its projects maintaining the character of the City of Seattle skyline. Foster Pepper’s legal services for the Addison on Fourth project included the acquisition of the project, the qualification of the project for historic tax credits and low income housing tax credits, the negotiation of the equity transaction documents with the tax credit investors, and construction and permanent financing with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, East West Bank, Citibank and Freddie Mac.